Philanthropy and Volunteerismhttps://jwa.org/topics/philanthropy-and-volunteerism
enFounding of the B'nai B'rith Girls (BBG)https://jwa.org/thisweek/apr/22/1944/founding-bnai-brith-girls-bbg
<span>Founding of the B'nai B'rith Girls (BBG)</span>
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<div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden field-item"> <a href="https://jwa.org/media/bbg75-logo"><img src="https://jwa.org/themes/jwawesome/images/lazy.gif" width="300" height="300" alt="Black and white image of BBG at 75 logo featuring a Star of David with the words "established 1944" inside, an illuminated menorah above, and the words "BBG at 75" below." data-src="//d3q94h10rclvvz.cloudfront.net/sites/default/files/styles/scale_width_300px/public/mediaobjects/BBG%20at%2075%20Logo%20Black.jpg?itok=YQv27fT1" class="b-lazy" typeof="foaf:Image" /></a>
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<span><span lang="" about="https://jwa.org/users/abelyea" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="" xml:lang="">abelyea</span></span>
<span>Thu, 04/18/2019 - 11:21</span>
<div class="field field-name-field-eventdate field-type-datetime field-label-hidden field-item">April 22, 1944</div>
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<div class="field field-name-field-section-text field-type-text-long field-label-hidden field-item"><p>In 1925, a prominent Jewish organization called B’nai B’rith adopted the Aleph Zadik Aleph as it auxiliary program for young men. Efforts began immediately to launch a program for Jewish young women that would serve as a sister to AZA in the B’nai B’rith family. Groups emerged as early as 1926 in Seattle, Washington, and 1927 in Newark, New Jersey. Unfortunately, these groups quickly dissolved.</p>
<p>However, the movement was not defeated. Efforts to create a sisterhood for Jewish young women continued. Rose Mauser organized the first permanent chapter of what is now the B’nai B’rith Girls in December of 1927 in San Francisco, California. Mattie Olcovich and Essie Solomon served as the first advisors. Unlike AZA, which began in Omaha in 1924 and then spread to become an international organization, chapters of girls sprung up throughout the United States and Canada in response to spontaneous local forces but without any central pattern of structure or policy and without professional supervision. “B’nai B’rith Girls” (BBG) was only one in a long list of names given to the early chapters. The age span of the members ranged anywhere from twelve into their 30s.</p>
<p>BBG chapter activities consisted mostly of programming that was modeled after the AZA “Five Fold and Full” program created by Dr. Boris D. Bogen in 1928. The emphasis was primarily on social gatherings and community service, with the inclusion of educational, religious, and recreational activities, as well.</p>
<p>Due to the lack of an organized uniform structure, some of the young women’s chapters also adopted national AZA observances. As regional and district association began to emerge, BBG’s programming also developed a broader base.</p>
<p>The development of the girls’ group was directly related to the strength of what was then called B’nai B’rith Women (BBW). BBG grew most quickly in the West, where B’nai B’rith Women was strongest. The women’s groups provided guidance and support to the developing girls’ groups. Use of the word “sister” was even adopted from the adult organization. Eventually, groups of B’nai B’rith Women around the country began sponsoring the junior groups by collecting dues from the girls for operation of their programs.</p>
<p>The appointment of <a href="https://jwa.org/people/perlman-anita">Anita M. Perlman</a> as Chairwoman of B’nai B’rith Girls was a major step in bringing structure to the loosely organized chapters. Though much dedication and hard work has gone into the building of the girls’ groups over a period of decades, no woman has put as much of herself into this work as Perlman. Within the first year of her appointment, and with a $600 budget, she was able to keep up correspondence with the leaders of BBW and BBG while developing invaluable program resources for the new group.</p>
<p>BBG was officially established as an international organization at a meeting held on April 22-23, 1944. A structure was defined at that time to include women from high school to the age of 25, but that system has shifted over time. The first ten BBG charters were issued at this time to San Francisco, CA, Oakland, CA, Los Angeles, CA (Linda Strauss), Harrisburg, PA, Highland Park, LA, Worcester, MA, Lancaster, PA, Chicago, IL (Ramah), Potsville, PA, and Homestead, PA. The individual identities of BBG and AZA have always thrived within BBYO. Both are very strong entities that have been bringing amazing opportunities to their members, both independently and together.</p>
<p>For more information about the founding and history of AZA & BBG, please visit <a href="https://bbyo.org/aza-bbg/aza-and-bbg-history">https://bbyo.org/aza-bbg/aza-and-bbg-history</a>.</p></div>
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Thu, 18 Apr 2019 15:21:17 +0000abelyea25491 at https://jwa.orgAnita M. Perlmanhttps://jwa.org/people/perlman-anita
<span>Anita M. Perlman</span>
<div class="field field-name-field-name-givenname field-type-string field-label-hidden field-item">Anita</div>
<span><span lang="" about="https://jwa.org/users/abelyea" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="" xml:lang="">abelyea</span></span>
<span>Thu, 04/18/2019 - 10:25</span>
<div class="field field-name-field-name-middlename field-type-string field-label-hidden field-item">M.</div>
<div class="field field-name-field-name-surname field-type-string field-label-hidden field-item">Perlman</div>
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<div class="field field-name-field-section-text field-type-text-long field-label-hidden field-item"><p>Anita M. Perlman was a feminist visionary, leader, and philanthropist. She was born in 1906 in Butte, MT, and is best known for founding the B’nai B’rith Girls (BBG)—the young women’s division of BBYO—in 1944. BBG is one of the world's largest and most historic sisterhoods shared by Jewish women, currently serving tens of thousands of Jewish teen girls across the globe, with hundreds of thousands of alumnae working to strengthen and advance the Jewish people and the world at large across all sectors of society.</p>
<p>Perlman’s hope for the young women of BBG was built on the notion that “the unique B’nai B’rith Girls way of life helps you find and express your Jewish identity, while expanding your circle of friends. [...] BBG offers you the chance to acquire knowledge and to make choices. [...] The more of yourself that you give to BBG [and the world around you], the more you will receive” (BBG Member's Manual, 2019). Her vision was to build the largest organization of young Jewish women in the world; today, that dream has been realized through the hundreds of thriving chapters operating across 50 countries.</p>
<p>In addition to her philanthropy and leadership, Perlman raised two children in Chicago, IL. She died in 1996 at the age of 90.</p></div>
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<div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden field-item"> <a href="https://jwa.org/media/anita-perlman"><img src="https://jwa.org/themes/jwawesome/images/lazy.gif" width="300" height="408" alt="Anita Perlman" data-src="//d3q94h10rclvvz.cloudfront.net/sites/default/files/styles/scale_width_300px/public/mediaobjects/Anita%20Perlman%20Headshot.jpg?itok=O0i2q2wm" class="b-lazy" typeof="foaf:Image" /></a>
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<div class="field field-name-field-caption field-type-text-long field-label-hidden field-item"><p>Anita Perlman, founder of B’nai B’rith Girls (BBG). Courtesy of BBYO.</p>
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<div class="field-item"><p class="address" translate="no"><span class="locality">Butte</span>, <span class="administrative-area">MT</span><br /><span class="country">United States</span></p></div>
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<div class="field field-name-field-alt-birthdate field-type-string field-label-hidden field-item">1906</div>
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</section>Thu, 18 Apr 2019 14:25:52 +0000abelyea25490 at https://jwa.orgSymmetry: Sylvia Bloom and Lillian Waldhttps://jwa.org/blog/symmetry-sylvia-bloom-and-lillian-wald
<span>Symmetry: Sylvia Bloom and Lillian Wald</span>
by <a href="https://jwa.org/blog/author/marjorie-n-feld" hreflang="und">Marjorie N. Feld</a><span><span lang="" about="https://jwa.org/users/bbook" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="" xml:lang="">bbook</span></span>
<span>Tue, 05/22/2018 - 09:56</span>
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<div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden field-item"> <a href="https://jwa.org/media/composite-image-of-lillian-wald-and-slyvia-bloom"><img src="https://jwa.org/themes/jwawesome/images/lazy.gif" width="300" height="210" alt="Composite Image of Lillian Wald and Slyvia Bloom" title="Composite Image of Lillian Wald and Slyvia Bloom" data-src="//d3q94h10rclvvz.cloudfront.net/sites/default/files/styles/scale_width_300px/public/mediaobjects/composite_lwsb.jpg?itok=lzUSWZ1W" class="b-lazy" typeof="foaf:Image" /></a>
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<div class="field field-name-field-caption field-type-text-long field-label-hidden field-item">Portraits of Lillian Wald and Sylvia Bloom. </div>
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<div class="field field-name-field-section-text field-type-text-long field-label-hidden field-item"><p>When I heard about the extraordinary <a href="https://www.henrystreet.org/news/latest-news/extraordinary-6-24-million-gift-to-henry-street/">multimillion dollar donation by Sylvia Bloom</a>, who <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/06/nyregion/secretary-fortune-donates.html">died in 2016</a>, to Henry Street Settlement, the word that immediately came to mind was the one I wrote to my Settlement friends: “there is a real symmetry there,” I told them. For Sylvia Bloom’s legacy will now support the legacy of<a href="https://jwa.org/womenofvalor/wald"> Lillian Wald</a> (1867-1940), founder of Henry Street, in helping thousands of <a href="https://www.henrystreet.org/programs/youth/expanded-horizons/">low-income young people go to college</a>. I am a historian, not a mathematician, but if ever there were historical symmetry, two powerful stories mirroring each other across history, it lies here, in the stories of these two extraordinary women.</p>
<p>The daughter of immigrants, a graduate of public schools and Hunter College (where she attended night classes), Sylvia Bloom joined the fledgling Manhattan law firm of Cleary Gottlieb in 1947 as a secretary, and dedicated 67 years to helping that institution grow and flourish. The firm now employs over a thousand people and has offices all over the world. When Bloom retired in 2016, her colleagues spoke of her strength, her intelligence, her integrity and sharp humor along with her vast knowledge of the inner workings of her office. Were she born today, they mused, she might have gone to law school; her hard work surely inspired women in and outside of her office to seek fulfillment in paid employment. The news stories speak of Bloom’s shrewd investment strategies, as she took her own salary and bought the same stocks purchased by the firm’s lawyers. Living modestly, she quietly built a fortune of millions.</p>
<p>The daughter of immigrants, a graduate of private school and then the New York Hospital Training School for Nurses, Lillian Wald visited hospitals and settlement houses before founding Henry Street Settlement in 1893. She began offering health care on a sliding fee scale, and through her knowledge of the industrial poor, immigrant population of her neighborhood, she soon expanded the settlement to offer opportunities for education, recreation, and artistic expression. Nurses and other reformers who trained at her institution worked for public health in countries all over the world. When Wald retired in 1932, her colleagues spoke of her dedication to improving the lives of women, workers, immigrants, and the poor, of how she inspired others to join debates and campaigns for public health and peace. In 2008, after over a decade studying Wald’s life, I <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Lillian-Wald-Biography-Marjorie-Feld/dp/0807832367">published a biography</a> in which I mused about Wald’s place in our contemporary world. Were she born today, perhaps she would have gone to medical school, or joined our own moment’s social movements for Civil, women’s and immigrant rights. Perhaps she would even run for office on a ticket that promised to empower people like her neighbors on the Lower East Side. Now, as during her own lifetime, Wald would likely direct her wealthy philanthropist friends to invest in the advancement of those people by donating to Henry Street Settlement.</p>
<p>In Bloom and Wald we find two extraordinary New Yorkers who share so many inspiring characteristics, above all perhaps the ability to push past the narrow limitations placed on independent women and children of immigrants. In their own lifetimes, they showed unquestionable courage, and there is a symmetry, then, to their histories, the boundaries they transcended, the institutions they nurtured and the lives they affected.</p>
<p>What most draws me to them today, though, is the symmetry of their legacies now, when they are no longer walking the halls of their beloved institutions or the streets of the city they called home. Bloom and Wald both acknowledged that even with their life struggles, it was certain privileges—of connection, education, race, and class—that afforded them their opportunities. They knew that forces would always be at work to prevent bright, honest, driven people with integrity from realizing their deepest ambitions, from feeling the sort of fulfillment they had the good fortune to experience in their own lifetimes. And so both Bloom and Wald worked hard, and, ultimately, invested all that they had in institutions that allow other people to realize their dreams.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.henrystreet.org/news/latest-news/symmetry-sylvia-bloom-and-lillian-wald/"><em>This blog post originally appeared on henrystreet.org. </em></a></p>
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</section>Tue, 22 May 2018 13:56:54 +0000bbook24677 at https://jwa.orgEnid Shapiro, 1925 - 2017https://jwa.org/weremember/shapiro-enid
<span>Enid Shapiro, 1925 - 2017</span>
<div class="field field-name-field-name-givenname field-type-string field-label-hidden field-item">Enid</div>
<span><span lang="" about="https://jwa.org/users/rking" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="" xml:lang="">rking</span></span>
<span>Thu, 12/14/2017 - 20:12</span>
<div class="field field-name-field-name-surname field-type-string field-label-hidden field-item">Shapiro</div>
<div class="field field-name-field-occupationavocation field-type-string field-label-hidden field-item">Social worker, philanthropist, volunteer, and "great connector"</div>
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<div class="field field-name-field-section-text field-type-text-long field-label-hidden field-item"><p>Two months before my mother died, her doctor stopped the chemotherapy and she rallied. In true Enid Shapiro style, my mom took the opportunity to attend an evening board meeting of The Right Question Institute (RQI), asking her caregiver/driver to stop on the way so she could pick up cheese and crackers to bring to the meeting. She cherished her place on the board, having joined it in her mid-80s and seeing the organization as an opportunity to promote one of her most valued ideals—democracy. RQI valued her as well, and devoted the last day of their annual conference in July 2017 to the memory of Enid Shapiro by sharing with the participants their process for promoting democracy.</p>
<p>Referred to by Rabbi Andrew Vogel as “the grande dame of Boston’s Jewish Community” Enid A Shapiro was a social worker, philanthropist, and volunteer who worked tirelessly to make the world a better place. She grew up in poverty, her father often hospitalized for a variety of illnesses on account of being gassed in World War I; her mother raised Enid and her brother, Alan, alone, working at times as a companion to support the family. Enid wanted to become a nurse but her mother forbade it. “Good Jewish girls do not become nurses,” she was told.</p>
<p>Enid graduated Brookline High School at sixteen and Boston University at nineteen, majoring in journalism. At a political event (most likely Workman’s Circle) she met my dad, Melvin Shapiro, her husband of 60 years. At the time she was working for a local paper but after I, her third and youngest child, was securely in primary school she went back to school and earned her Master’s degree in social work. One of few working mothers in our small suburban community, she was a trailblazer in so many ways.</p>
<p>As Judy Rakowsky wrote in an obituary for <em>Social Work</em> Magazine “Enid Shapiro was a social worker like Beverly Sills was a singer. She took her practice to profound heights, resettling Russian immigrants, finding the best setting for elderly patients, counseling converts to Judaism and parents of LGBT children with the empathy most people reserve for friends. And she led social justice, interreligious relations and breast cancer support efforts with passion and humility.”</p>
<p>My mom was known by many as “the great connector.” She was endlessly interested in people and would find ways to connect people around the globe. She remembered their birthdays, their children’s birthdays, sent cards and wrote notes to keep in touch. But, most importantly, she introduced people whom she felt such introductions would benefit. On the eve of her death we received a phone call from a couple calling to say they were on their way from the airport. She had met them while traveling in Vietnam a few years before and had offered couple a place to stay on numerous occasions. They had not known of her illness. My mom’s friend, Jane Matlaw, in “true Enid Shapiro style” offered her home to the the Portland, Oregon couple.</p>
<p>It is hard to say what my mom was most proud of. She was involved in social justice efforts, Muslim-Jewish relations and Arab-Jewish relations in Israel, Boston Keshet, Hadassah, Jewish Community Relations Council, Kit Clark Senior Services, The Abraham Fund, Temple Sinai and its rainbow committee, The Coolidge Corner Theater, The Brookline Literacy Project, Hebrew College, the Boston Opera Company, the Right Question Institute, Friendship Works, the Jewish Women’s Archive, to name a few. In 2011 with the help of Jane Matlaw, she came up with her own 85<sup>th</sup> birthday idea to create the Enid Shapiro Endowed Fund for Social Work Exchange with Rambam Hospital in Haifa. This was one of her proudest accomplishments and on a couple of occasions while visiting I got to meet the Israeli exchange students because they stayed with her. She was a corporator for Simmons College School of Social Work where she established an Innovation and Learning Fund. Each organization she took seriously and helped raise funds and support to insure the success of their work.</p>
<p>Late in her life, my mom decided, as her own mother had, to take up the study of Hebrew and scripture. She was proudly bat-mitzvahed in 2009. Three days before her death we had to notify her study group that they could not meet at her house. My mother had given her dining room over to countless organizations and could be found on a Friday afternoon with her Hebrew teacher studying with him at her dining room table or on Mondays surrounded by her Temple study group. She loved Temple Sinai as a family and they provided a community for her that gave her something truly special in her old age (though Enid never seemed to be old).</p>
<p>My mom defied her diagnosis of stage-four breast cancer and lived in spite of the disease for 20 years. Her devotion to breast cancer awareness and prevention, Silent Spring, and other efforts was my model for how to live despite a cancer diagnosis and helped me through my own cancer treatment in 2001.</p>
<p>Enid Shapiro lived <em>tikkun olam</em>. She was an early feminist, a devoted Jew, an unceasing learner, and she made a difference in countless people’s lives through her devotion to repair the world and her commitment to kindness and care that came from a place of profound integrity. Powerful, brave, unceasing in her devotion to social justice, she continues to be a model for many.</p>
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<div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden field-item"> <a href="https://jwa.org/media/enid-shapiro-0"><img src="https://jwa.org/themes/jwawesome/images/lazy.gif" width="300" height="225" alt="Enid Shapiro" title="Enid Shapiro" data-src="//d3q94h10rclvvz.cloudfront.net/sites/default/files/styles/scale_width_300px/public/mediaobjects/enid_shapiro.jpg?itok=DAxXEyAO" class="b-lazy" typeof="foaf:Image" /></a>
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<div class="field field-name-field-caption field-type-text-long field-label-hidden field-item"><p>Enid Shapiro. Photo courtesy of Amy Shapiro.</p>
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<div class="field field-name-field-alt-birthdate field-type-string field-label-hidden field-item">1925</div>
<div class="field field-name-field-alt-deathdate field-type-string field-label-hidden field-item">2017</div>
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<mark class="hidden" data-comment-timestamp="1558704447"></mark><div class="submitted"><span class="username"><span lang="" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="" xml:lang="">Anat</span></span>1 day ago</div>
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<div class="field field-name-comment-body field-type-text-long field-label-hidden field-item"><p>In search after another Enid Shapiro, I came across this page- learning and appreciating your mom’s way of living and giving. Let her memory be cherished.</p>
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</section>Fri, 15 Dec 2017 01:12:48 +0000rking24286 at https://jwa.orgActing Our Age with Susan Goodmanhttps://jwa.org/blog/acting-our-age-with-susan-goodman
<span>Acting Our Age with Susan Goodman</span>
by <a href="https://jwa.org/blog/author/abby-richmond" hreflang="und">Abby Richmond</a><span><span lang="" about="https://jwa.org/users/bbook" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="" xml:lang="">bbook</span></span>
<span>Mon, 09/11/2017 - 11:10</span>
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<div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden field-item"> <a href="https://jwa.org/media/susan-goodman-headshot"><img src="https://jwa.org/themes/jwawesome/images/lazy.gif" width="300" height="170" alt="Susan Goodman Headshot" title="Susan Goodman Headshot" data-src="//d3q94h10rclvvz.cloudfront.net/sites/default/files/styles/scale_width_300px/public/mediaobjects/sdg_1.jpg?itok=ekCr2seR" class="b-lazy" typeof="foaf:Image" /></a>
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<div class="field field-name-field-caption field-type-text-long field-label-hidden field-item"><p>Headshot of Susan Goodman, who interviews women age 85+, for the blog <a href="http://actingourageblog.com/"><em>Acting Our Age</em></a>.</p>
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<div class="field field-name-field-section-text field-type-text-long field-label-hidden field-item"><p>Susan Goodman has spent her life ensuring that older people don’t get left out of our national narrative. She has worked for more equitable, affordable, and inclusive senior housing, organized support and care networks, and strived to make sure that seniors are not separated from the rest of society. While her life’s work is a testament to her commitment to helping people grow older with dignity, respect, and independence, Susan’s latest project is remarkable in both its scope and specificity. Currently, in order to be interviewed on Susan’s blog <a href="http://actingourageblog.com/"><em>Acting Our Age</em></a>, you must be a woman 85 or older. The blog houses 30+ such interviews.</p>
<p>I was fortunate enough to speak with Susan about these amazing women, what they continue to teach us, and the importance of intergenerational conversation.</p>
<p><strong>Why does Acting Our Age specifically showcase older women? Why is it important to lift up these voices? </strong></p>
<p>In a myriad of ways, life for women in the United States has altered dramatically in the past 80, 90, 100 years. I find it fascinating to sit down and talk with those who have personally experienced – and many times, contributed to – this remarkable scope of change.</p>
<p>To date, I have interviewed 30 women whose ages range from 85 to 105. The oldest women were born before the passage of the 19th amendment granted American women the right to vote. It is exciting to think that while I am interviewing women who were among the first in their families to vote, I may also meet someone whose granddaughter or great-granddaughter will be the first woman to reside in the White House as Commander in Chief.</p>
<p>Many of us bemoan how long it has taken for women to advance and how much further we still have to go. But, older women may experience that pace of change differently. Many, who recall waiting for coal deliveries to be hauled into their cellars, are today connecting with grandchildren on Facetime. I spoke with women, whose parents told them that it was a waste to educate girls, watch their granddaughters earn medical degrees.</p>
<p>Older women today offer access to a treasure trove of personal accounts from one of the most interesting times in American history. And, their stories inform much more than just the past. They have insights and perspectives about living and aging that can offer us important information for our own journeys.</p>
<p><strong>What stereotypes influence how older people are perceived and treated? </strong></p>
<p>One interviewee, <a href="http://actingourageblog.com/2015/08/27/insights-from-rose-at-91/">Rose</a>, had this insight: “<em>Don’t put us all into one category. The only thing common about people who are aging is that every one of us is different.</em>”</p>
<p>Our youth-loving society often operates with a very narrow concept of what it means to be aged. Like any marginalized group, stereotypes about older people are easy to perpetuate. These stereotypes are dismissive, shortsighted, and unfounded. It is not uncommon to hear that older people are stagnant, frail, depressed, and depressing. They are categorized as being incapable of, or uninterested in, contributing to society.</p>
<p>Luckily, people’s mindsets are shifting as our society ages and we engage in conversations that examine these myths. With <em>Acting Our Age</em>, I aim to share the voices of those whose lifestyles and perspectives challenge these misperceptions on a daily basis.</p>
<p>Many of the women I interview have a endless desire to learn, engage, and contribute. <a href="http://actingourageblog.com/2016/03/28/june-at-89/">June</a>, at age 89, continually researched the latest books, movies and theater so that her monthly column in the local newspaper would interest arts lovers of all ages. <a href="http://actingourageblog.com/2015/08/27/insights-from-rose-at-91/">Rose</a> had a bench press next to her bed and, at 91, she was up to 45 pounds. <a href="http://actingourageblog.com/2016/10/26/bea-at-105/">Bea</a> was more typical. She rode a stationary bike consistently each day and was not interested in setting any record paces (although she was 105!)</p>
<p>My blog is filled with other impressive examples of older people living full and active lives. Before <a href="http://actingourageblog.com/2015/09/28/enid-at-90/">Enid</a> and I met one afternoon, this 90-year-old dynamo had already walked two miles in the snow, responded to business emails (she was on several nonprofit boards), and participated in a film discussion at the local cinema. Then the two of us had a three-hour conversation. Afterwards, I went home for a nap and she was off to the theater!</p>
<p>Just as I make a conscious effort to challenge the misperceptions that older women are set in their ways and uninterested in the world, I am also mindful that it would be misleading to idealize them or champion them as “Super Seniors.” During my interviews, I found their stories to be extraordinary. These are truly ordinary women who could be our peers, our aunts, or our grandmothers. They discuss their accomplishments, but they also speak about the rough patches that are inevitable parts of life. Some have endured bad marriages, while others have experienced the nightmare of burying children. I am constantly moved by the vibrant women who speak openly about the days when they have to fight the urge to give in to their tired and achy bodies, and stay in bed.</p>
<p><strong>Why is intergenerational dialogue so important? </strong></p>
<p>We live in a time when “otherness” is a heightened issue. Age is one of the categories that separates us. This separation is then perpetuated by the limited variety of housing options available to older people. Whether it’s low-income, subsidized senior housing or high-end senior communities, many live in age-restricted settings. Like all segregation, it makes everyday encounters––the ones that remind us that people are people––rare and often artificial. I’m hopeful that the Baby Boomers will create more inclusive housing options.</p>
<p><strong>What common themes emerge from your interviews with these women? </strong></p>
<p>As I asked the women for advice on aging, several themes were repeatedly mentioned. Good genes and no debilitating conditions aside, these women mentioned the importance of a positive attitude; the willingness to push oneself in order to continue lifelong activities or explore new ones; the value of on-going relationships with younger people; and the value of exercise. Considering how often we laughed during these conversations, I must add that maintaining a sense of humor appears to be a tremendous asset!</p>
<p><strong>Has there been one interview that stood out to you as particularly inspiring? </strong></p>
<p>Tough question! I am happy to say that many interviews immediately come to mind.</p>
<p>My interview with <a href="http://actingourageblog.com/2017/01/27/lillian/">Lillian</a> was particularly thought provoking. Her life had been filled with impressive accomplishments. She attended college in her 40s and graduated as valedictorian from her Boston University class. At the high school where she taught, she was the first female history teacher and later, became the first female department chair. She spent rewarding years inspiring kids to learn about the past while becoming engaged in issues of social justice.</p>
<p>Amazingly, she remained in the job until she was 85. When I met Lillian, she had been retired for 10 years and was emphatic that seniors needed a <em>raison d’etre</em>. She still felt an urgent need to contribute to society, yet there are few available channels. (As an educator, she described this more aptly by saying it felt like perpetually “Waiting for Godot”).</p>
<p>While I was delighted to later learn that Lillian had found a niche leading multiple book clubs in her building, I continued to think about her quest. Lillian was essentially asking a very female question: “do I matter?” I hadn’t considered that this uncertainty might persist, and even become more pressing and more difficult to resolve as we grow older. I find myself wondering how this will play out for me.</p>
<p><strong>What role does your Jewish identity play in the mission of Acting Our Age? </strong></p>
<p>So much of my Jewish identity is focused on connection and community. A prominent goal for the blog is to make connections among generations and enlarge our notion of community. While I continue to strive to interview women of all backgrounds, to date, many I’ve interviewed are Jewish. I enjoy knowing that when I enter the home of a Jewish woman––someone who is a complete stranger––I can anticipate that some elements of her story will resonate with me. At some point in our conversation, there will likely be reference to Shabbat dinner or a Seder, and a Yiddish expression will be used. Our shared experience as Jewish women closes the gap that age and different life experiences can sometime generate.</p>
<p><em>Know a woman 85+ with an interesting story to share? Susan can be reached at <a href="mailto:susanactingourage@gmail.com">susanactingourage@gmail.com</a>.</em></p>
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Topics:
<a href="https://jwa.org/topics/feminism" hreflang="en">Feminism</a>, <a href="https://jwa.org/topics/history" hreflang="en">Jewish History</a>, <a href="https://jwa.org/topics/philanthropy-and-volunteerism" hreflang="en">Philanthropy and Volunteerism</a>
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<mark class="hidden" data-comment-timestamp="1505491490"></mark><div class="submitted"><span class="username"><span lang="" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="" xml:lang="">Josh</span></span>2 years ago</div>
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<div class="field field-name-comment-body field-type-text-long field-label-hidden field-item"><p>Great interview! Thanks for sharing!</p>
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</section>Mon, 11 Sep 2017 15:10:41 +0000bbook23858 at https://jwa.orgNot Your Average Grandmahttps://jwa.org/blog/risingvoices/not-your-average-grandma
<span>Not Your Average Grandma</span>
by <a href="https://jwa.org/blog/author/abby-richmond" hreflang="und">Abby Richmond</a><span><span lang="" about="https://jwa.org/users/lklebe" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="" xml:lang="">lklebe</span></span>
<span>Wed, 05/04/2016 - 09:16</span>
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<div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden field-item"> <a href="https://jwa.org/media/rising-voices-fellow-abby-richmond-with-her-grandmother-cropped"><img src="https://jwa.org/themes/jwawesome/images/lazy.gif" width="300" height="214" alt="Rising Voices Fellow Abby Richmond with her Grandmother Cropped" title="Rising Voices Fellow Abby Richmond with her Grandmother Cropped" data-src="//d3q94h10rclvvz.cloudfront.net/sites/default/files/styles/scale_width_300px/public/mediaobjects/abby_and_grandma_0.png?itok=wCvDeTS-" class="b-lazy" typeof="foaf:Image" /></a>
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<div class="field field-name-field-caption field-type-text-long field-label-hidden field-item"><p>2015-2016 Rising Voices Fellow Abby Richmond with her grandmother, Brenda.</p>
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<div class="field field-name-field-section-text field-type-text-long field-label-hidden field-item"><p>Many people view grandmothers as sweet, docile old ladies, whose sole purposes are to bake cookies and knit sweaters for their grandchildren. While it’s true that my Grandma Brenda does greatly enjoy spoiling and feeding her grandchildren, there’s so much more to her story.</p>
<p>My grandma’s father died when she was young, and she grew up in a house full of women as the youngest of three daughters. She lived in a low-rent government housing project in New Jersey until age 13, but her childhood was relatively happy considering the circumstances. She once told me: “I never felt poor because I never knew any other way of life. We always had plenty of food and plenty of love.” These years were humble—so humble, in fact, that there was no time or money for Judaism in her household. She knew almost nothing about her religion—she had never gone to temple, never celebrated a Jewish holiday, and didn’t know a thing about the state of Israel. Later in life, my grandma would ask her mother Bessie why Judaism was absent in those early years. My great grandmother Bessie would always reply jokingly that with three little girls, she was worried that one of her daughters’ curls would catch on fire if she so much as lit Shabbat candles. The fact of the matter was that practicing Judaism was a luxury that their family simply did not have time for and could not afford.</p>
<p>My grandma moved to Springfield, Massachusetts following the death of her maternal grandfather, who left her mother and uncle a modest two-family house in that city. The house was, admittedly, nicer than her previous home in Newark’s projects, but my grandma recalls those years as much more painful than her early childhood. As my peers and I know very well, high school is often a time filled with academic pressures and social stress. For my grandma, it was all of that times ten. Starting at age 13, she had to work around the clock to help support her struggling family. Her mother Bessie would call the school and get her excused from her last two periods of the day so she could go straight from lunch to her afternoon job at a plumbing supply store. This was followed by babysitting every night, and weekend work at her uncle’s scrap metal store. She was self-conscious in high school about her old hand-me-down clothes, and the fact that she couldn’t afford (and didn’t have time) to participate in many of her classmates’ social activities.</p>
<p>Despite her hectic life, Brenda received good grades in high school and started at a local college with a one-semester scholarship. After the money ran out, however, she had to return home, with no funds left to continue her college education. She took on more jobs, and soon met my grandpa—who had had a difficult childhood himself, and like her, came from a completely secular background. They married when she was just 19, moved to the suburbs, and continued leading assimilated secular lives.</p>
<p>They lived like this until Israel was attacked by its neighbors in the Six-Day War . This was a transformative experience in my grandmother’s life. She still vividly remembers what my grandfather said the evening the war broke out: “The Jewish people are going to be annihilated—they’ll be slaughtered. American Jews have to do something.” My grandparents rushed to the local JCC and worked in a frenzy for three straight days to raise money for arms, planes, and infrastructure to help support Israel’s defense.</p>
<p>The Six-Day War helped my grandma discover her Jewish identity—not an observant, religious identity— but a Zionist one. She realized she felt strongly that all Jews should have a safe and welcoming homeland. After her tireless work during the Six-Day War, she and my grandfather were invited to join a young leadership group of Springfield’s Jewish Federation. Over the next several decades, she and my grandpa devoted countless hours of work and made significant donations to the Federation and to other organizations to support Israel and the Jewish community. Grandma Brenda even donated a 1-carat diamond ring during the Yom Kippur War to help the war effort—one of my personal favorite stories. Wanting her children to get the Jewish education she missed out on, she enrolled them in the local Jewish Day School, despite her still-secular mother’s skepticism.</p>
<p>Since my grandma first discovered Zionism in 1967, she has visited Israel 23 times, and she claims each trip is better than the last. Most of these trips have been Federation missions, which are packed with educational speeches and visits to local beneficiaries of Federation dollars. My grandma often tells me a story about a trip in the 80’s, when she and my grandfather waited on the runway at Ben Gurion Airport in the middle of the night to welcome the new “olim” (immigrants to Israel) from Russia. My grandma always cries as she describes the elderly Jews getting off the plane, sometimes carrying Torahs, and kissing the ground as they first step foot on Israeli soil. Of course my personal favorite of her 23 trips was the one I got to go on. In honor of my grandparents’ 50th anniversary, they took my entire extended family to Israel. We ranged in age from 7 to 78, and my first experience in Israel was all the more amazing because I got to share first-hand in my grandma’s passion for the country.</p>
<p>Nowadays, my grandma continues to support Israel. Her view of Israel is, of course, not black and white; it’s a nuanced vision. She doesn’t always agree with the Prime Minister Netanyahu’s stances, she believes strongly in a two-state solution, and is against the building of settlements. However, my grandma remains unwavering in her belief that there should be a safe and peaceful Jewish homeland. Even now at the age of 77, she takes courses on the Middle East at a local college to remain informed about Israel’s current political situation.</p>
<p>One more thing about Grandma Brenda: although she never learned what the word “feminism” meant until later in life, she has always been a great female role model in my life. In an era when women in upper-class suburbia were often limited to being mothers and wives, my grandma broke these boundaries by additionally working passionately as a philanthropist and activist. My grandma’s journey from a struggling secular childhood to an adulthood marked by a strong Jewish identity and passion for Israel, makes Grandma Brenda one of the most inspirational Jewish ladies I will ever know.</p>
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Topics:
<a href="https://jwa.org/topics/family" hreflang="en">Family</a>, <a href="https://jwa.org/topics/mothers" hreflang="en">Motherhood</a>, <a href="https://jwa.org/topics/israel" hreflang="en">Israel</a>, <a href="https://jwa.org/topics/philanthropy-and-volunteerism" hreflang="en">Philanthropy and Volunteerism</a>
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</section>Wed, 04 May 2016 13:16:34 +0000lklebe21927 at https://jwa.orgHow Do We Use Our Privilege? https://jwa.org/blog/how-do-we-use-our-privilage
<span>How Do We Use Our Privilege? </span>
by <a href="https://jwa.org/blog/author/jordyn-rozensky" hreflang="und"> Jordyn Rozensky </a><span><span lang="" about="https://jwa.org/users/jrozensky" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="" xml:lang="">jrozensky</span></span>
<span>Wed, 07/17/2013 - 16:29</span>
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<div class="field field-name-field-section-text field-type-text-long field-label-hidden field-item"><p>It’s not easy to acknowledge our own privilege. In fact, it can be down right uncomfortable. Harder still is the process of figuring out what to do about it—how to move beyond feeling guilty, paralyzed, or too small to fight the system.</p>
<p>Since George Zimmerman’s acquittal over the weekend, there has been an outpouring of support from people on social media: “I am Trayvon Martin,” has been a <a href="http://iamtrayvonmartin.tumblr.com/">common tweet</a>. The message here is clear: “It could have been me who was shot dead.” Large numbers of men and women have said exactly the opposite. An entire tumblr blog is dedicated to those who are <a href="http://wearenottrayvonmartin.com/">NOT Trayvon Martin</a>. The writers acknowledge their own privilege by drawing attention to the reality that safety and security are often correlated with, and determined by, skin color. At the top of the <a href="http://wearenottrayvonmartin.com/">blog</a> it reads, “It's not enough to know you aren't Trayvon. What will you do to change our country?”</p>
<p>The struggle for social justice involves going beyond what is easy, taking actions that are often risky. I find it helpful to have role models to remind me of the work that needs to be done, and often IS done, by people of privilege. The Jewish Women's Archive website is brimming with just such role models—hundreds of examples of women who did not let their privileged positions keep them from taking courageous action. JWA gives us a look at how our foremothers reconciled the complicated relationship between privilege and activism.</p>
<p>For example, these two women came from means they used to make the world a better place.</p>
<p><strong>Myra Kraft</strong></p>
<p>Myra Kraft was the daughter of one wealthy businessman and the wife of another. Throughout her 45-year marriage to Bob Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots, she found ways to help people who were not as lucky as she was. As you can read in <a href="https://jwa.org/weremember/kraft-myra">We Remember</a>, Myra leveraged her privilege to give back in a myriad of ways.</p>
<p>“My parents passed down that you give back. That's the way I was raised," she said. "If you are fortunate to be able to give back you should do it. If not in money, then in time."</p>
<p>“It’s easy to write a check,’’ she told the <em>Boston Globe</em> in 2007. “But this is what … my occupation is. I don’t know how to play bridge, nor do I want to learn how to play bridge. This is what I do.’” (<a href="https://jwa.org/blog/remembering-myra-kraft">Read on</a>!)</p>
<p><strong>Polly Cowan</strong></p>
<p>Polly Cowan also came from a world of privilege. “<a href="https://jwa.org/weremember/cowan-polly">My mother</a> loved the glamour of that world," one of her children wrote. "I can recall watching her dress for the evening, especially one black gown, a Givenchy I believe, with beautiful pearl earrings, necklace, and bracelet. Every New Year's Eve [my parents] hosted a large and elegant party, and she reigned over the event in some glorious outfit or another.” Yet it wasn’t her glamor that makes her a hero in the Civil Rights Movement but her actions that crossed cultural and racial lines.</p>
<p>Polly and a black friend developed a unique community organizing project known as “Wednesdays in Mississippi.” The project brought northern women to southern communities to work with southern women in the fight for equal rights. The northern women flew to Jackson, MI on Tuesdays, traveled across the state in inter-racial teams on Wednesdays to work with freedom schools, and returned home on Thursdays. Many of the women involved came from what Cowan called the “Cadillac crowd,” but that did not stop them from defying cultural convention in the name of what was right. (<a href="https://jwa.org/teach/livingthelegacy/civilrights/community-organizing-ii-wednesdays-in-mississippi">Read on</a>!)</p>
<p>I could name dozens of other women who used their privilege to enact change. Profiles of women like <a href="https://jwa.org/womenofvalor/lazarus">Emma Lazarus</a>, <a href="https://jwa.org/womenofvalor/weil">Gertrude Weil</a>, <a href="https://jwa.org/womenofvalor/solomon">Hannah Greenbaum Solomon</a>, <a href="https://jwa.org/weremember/bronfman-andrea">Andrea Bronfman</a>, and <a href="https://jwa.org/weremember/lilienthal-sally">Sally Lilienthal</a> can all be found on jwa.org.</p>
<p>Reading about the choices they made helps me see that privilege can make you a powerful advocate for social justice. If we are willing to acknowledge our privilege, we can use it to change the world.</p>
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Topics:
<a href="https://jwa.org/topics/civil-rights" hreflang="en">Civil Rights</a>, <a href="https://jwa.org/topics/philanthropy-and-volunteerism" hreflang="en">Philanthropy and Volunteerism</a>
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<mark class="hidden" data-comment-timestamp="1486499915"></mark><div class="submitted"><span class="username"><span lang="" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="" xml:lang="">Talia G</span></span>6 years ago</div>
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<div class="field field-name-comment-body field-type-text-long field-label-hidden field-item"><p>It is so important for those of us with privilege to recognize it and use it for good. This article underscores that point so well. It's so inspiring to hear about Jewish women from previous eras who used their privilege for good. Great article!</p>
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</section>Wed, 17 Jul 2013 20:29:00 +0000jrozensky17090 at https://jwa.orgElizabeth Scharpf's DIY Aid project: keeping African girls in school with affordable padshttps://jwa.org/blog/elizabeth-scharpf
<span>Elizabeth Scharpf's DIY Aid project: keeping African girls in school with affordable pads</span>
by <a href="https://jwa.org/blog/author/from-rib" hreflang="und">From the Rib</a><span><span lang="" about="https://jwa.org/users/lberkenwald" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="" xml:lang="">lberkenwald</span></span>
<span>Tue, 10/26/2010 - 09:12</span>
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<div class="field field-name-field-section-text field-type-text-long field-label-hidden field-item"><p> There was a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/24/magazine/24volunteerism-t.html?_r=1&ref=general&src=me&pagewanted=all">really interesting article</a> in <i>The New York Times</i> last week by Nicholas D. Kristof about individuals who are, in effect, creating foreign aid on their own. He writes about various people who, feeling passionately about helping the world, got up, changed their lives, and simply, did it. He tells a few stories, highlighting the fact that many of the members of the “Do-It-Yourself Foreign Aid Revolution” are women. One that I find to be particularly interesting is the story of Elizabeth Scharpf. While interning for a summer in Mozambique with the World Bank, she learned that many women were hesitant to go to work while menstruating because of the high cost of feminine hygiene products. When she came back to Harvard, she asked around, and discovered that a similar problem existed in many countries around the globe, but that it was often a topic too taboo to discuss. </p>
<p> So she came home, contacted people she knew in pharmaceuticals and biotech, and tried to design a company to produce cheap sanitary pads that women could distribute through a franchise system. After discovering that commercial pads were expensive to manufacture because of pricey raw materials, she got together a team that designed a pad made out of banana fibers that proved to be eco-friendly, absorbent, and significantly cheaper to produce. After winning a grant and a fellowship, Scharpf has created an organization called Sustainable Health Enterprises that will begin manufacturing pads next year in Rwanda and that is advocating for the Rwandan government to lift the 18 percent sales tax on feminine hygiene products to make them more affordable. </p>
<p> It’s unclear how much of an effect the banana-fiber pads will have. Perhaps they will still be too expensive for families to buy, or girls will still miss school because of menstrual cramps. There are studies that show that providing girls with pads actually increases school attendance, but also studies that show that providing bicycles would help more than pads; the pads’ immediate effects are still an unknown. </p>
<p> However, I think that even if her project does not have grand, sweeping results, it’s important to think about the fact that this is exactly the type of innovation that our world needs today: ideas that take into account and carefully consider monetary, environmental, and social concerns. Often times, we think about philanthropy just in terms of giving money, and forget that money needs to go somewhere — and that where it goes matters. Instead of trying to pay for women’s sanitary pads and continue to supply women with them, Scharpf is trying to create a sustainable system that can exist without a constant stream of money from outside donors. Not only that, but she’s trying to empower women by filling an obvious void in their lives, and relieving them of one more burden preventing them from going to school. It takes a lot of time to change a society in which women are expected to miss school often, but providing them with the tools they need to allow them to feel comfortable school is the first step. </p>
<p> I wanted to share this with you all because I think it’s an interesting and important story, but also because as Jewish women we should remember that we’re part of a long train of healthcare activism. <a href="https://jwa.org/womenofvalor/wald">Lillian Wald</a>, the woman who first coined the term “public health nurse,” was a leader of a movement of nurses who worked outside of hospitals inside poor communities. These women, taking a new and novel approach to healthcare, worked on preventative health as well as treatment of ailing patients. Under Wald’s influence, the New York Board of Health began to organize the first public nursing system in the world. Wald did not just work for a short-term solution to a problem, but rather succeeded at shaping a long-term healthcare system. With her in mind, we should applaud women like Scharpf for their innovation and efforts. </p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="more-on-topics">
Topics:
<a href="https://jwa.org/topics/activism" hreflang="en">Activism</a>, <a href="https://jwa.org/topics/philanthropy-and-volunteerism" hreflang="en">Philanthropy and Volunteerism</a>, <a href="https://jwa.org/topics/politics-and-government" hreflang="en">Politics and Government</a>
</div>
<section id="node-blogpost-field-comments--5"><div id="comments">
<div class="comments-count">1 Comment</div>
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<mark class="hidden" data-comment-timestamp="1486499878"></mark><div class="submitted"><span class="username"><span lang="" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="" xml:lang="">N Larson</span></span>9 years ago</div>
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<div class="field field-name-comment-body field-type-text-long field-label-hidden field-item"><p>As a woman, I greatly appreciate Elizabeth Scharpf's response to one issue we women face because of menstruation. However, expense is not the only problem women face in the worlds of work and education. Irregular periods, especially heavy ones, and period-related pain can also create havoc in affected women's lives. I myself dealt with the former problem most of my adult life, and in college, I had a friend and roommate who missed at least a few days of classes each month because of debilitating pain. While I appreciate Ms. Scharpf's work to help women in poor environments obtain feminine protection, this is not the only difficulty we women face because of our periods. Is anyone dealing with the other problems? I for one would be interested.</p>
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</section>Tue, 26 Oct 2010 13:12:27 +0000lberkenwald14232 at https://jwa.orgAliza Greenblatthttps://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/greenblat-aliza
<span>Aliza Greenblatt</span>
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden field-item">
<p>
Deep love for the Jewish people informed the life of Aliza Greenblatt, an American Yiddish poet and an early, committed leader in Zionist and Jewish women’s organizations. Greenblatt was among the first to organize the American Jewish community and raise funds toward the establishment of a Jewish national home. Many of her poems, which were widely published in the Yiddish press, were also set to music and recorded.
</p>
<p>
Born Aliza Waitzman in September 1885 in Azarenits, Bessarabia, Aliza and her two sisters were sent to heder until their father’s death in 1893, because they had no brothers. Their mother remarried five years later. In 1900, Aliza, her stepfather, and three stepbrothers came to the United States. They settled in Philadelphia, where Aliza worked in the garment industry. Four years later, when they could afford to send for her mother, Aliza stopped working and received tutoring in English at home. In 1907, she married Isidor Greenblatt, a fellow Bessarabian immigrant, and they had five children: Herbert, David, Gertrude, <span class="encyclopedia_smallcaps">Marjorie [Guthrie]</span> and Bernard.
</p>
<p>
Shortly after the birth of her first child, Greenblatt began her charitable and organizational work. The family moved from Philadelphia to Atlantic City, where Greenblatt served as president of the local chapter of the True Sisters and organized the Atlantic City branch of the <i>farband</i><i>,</i> a Yiddish socialist charitable organization. After the 1917 Balfour Declaration, Greenblatt, finding no local Zionist group, established the Atlantic City branch of the Zionist Organization of America. In time, she became a successful fund-raiser for the Jewish National Fund, an active <span class="encyclopedia_smallcaps">Hadassah</span> member, and national president of <span class="encyclopedia_smallcaps">Pioneer Women</span><span class="encyclopedia_smallcaps">.</span>
</p>
<p>
In 1919, Greenblatt and her husband considered moving to Palestine. To prepare, Isidor spent several months there in the spring of 1920, trying to establish a fruit-canning factory. His absence, however, led to the failure of their business at home and the postponement of their dream of emigrating. Thirty years later, their fortunes improved, and they were able to try again. However, Aliza was so unhappy with the material conditions under which they lived that, after struggling for a year, they returned to the United States for good. They moved to New York to be closer to its Yiddish literary community. Until his death in 1960, Isidor devoted himself to promoting investment in Israel.
</p>
<p>
In her later years, Greenblatt focused on writing. She published five volumes of poetry and an autobiography, <i>Baym Fenster fun a Lebn</i> [A window on a life], all in Yiddish. Her poems and songs appeared in Yiddish newspapers in the United States and Israel, and were recorded by Theodore Bikel, among others. Fellow poets Jacob Glatshteyn and Avram Reisen praised her work. For many years, Jewish women’s organizations sponsored readings of her poetry across the United States. She died in New York on September 21, 1975.
</p>
<p>
In the American Jewish community, Aliza Greenblatt was a pioneer in her activism for a Jewish national home. As an organizer and fund-raiser, she mobilized support in the United States for the establishment of the State of Israel and fought to involve Jewish women in that cause. Her poetry and autobiography chronicle her life, from its origins in an impoverished <span class="encyclopedia-glossary"><span class="def-container"><span class="encyclopedia-definition">(Yiddish) Small-town Jewish community in Eastern Europe.</span></span><span class="encyclopedia-term">shtetl</span></span> in Eastern Europe to a position in the middle-class Jewish community of New York. Her work adds an important Yiddish voice to the history of twentieth-century American Jewry, and her life provides an exemplar of the activism of American Jewish women.
</p>
<h2>
SELECTED WORKS BY ALIZA GREENBLATT
</h2>
<p>
<i>Baym Fentster fun a Lebn</i> [A window on a life] (1966); <i>Ikh un Du</i> [You and I] (1951); <i>Ikh Zing</i> [I sing] (1947); <i>In Sigate baym Yam</i> [In Seagate by the ocean] (1957); <i>Lebn Mayns</i> [My life] (1935); <i>Tsen Lider mit Musik</i> [Ten poems with music] (1939).
</p>
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<span><span lang="" about="https://jwa.org/users/d7admin" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="" xml:lang="">d8admin</span></span>
<span>Fri, 03/20/2009 - 11:00</span>
by <a href="https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/author/shavelson-susanne" hreflang="und">Susanne A. Shavelson</a>
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<mark class="hidden" data-comment-timestamp="1486499913"></mark><div class="submitted"><span class="username"><span lang="" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="" xml:lang="">WIM VELTHUIZEN</span></span>8 years ago</div>
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<div class="field field-name-comment-body field-type-text-long field-label-hidden field-item"><p>I PLAY THE DOUBLE BASS IN A TRIO IN THE NETHERLANDS: SINGER, PIANO, BASS.<br />AMONG MANY OTHER SONGS WE REGULARLY PLAY "DU DU".<br />I KNOW THE LYRICS ARE BY ALIZA GREENBLATT. BUT WHO WROTE THE MUSIC? IS IT AN OLD, ORIGINAL JEWISH SONG?</p>
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<mark class="hidden" data-comment-timestamp="1486499877"></mark><div class="submitted"><span class="username"><span lang="" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="" xml:lang="">Michael</span></span>9 years ago</div>
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<div class="field field-name-comment-body field-type-text-long field-label-hidden field-item"><p>Aliza Greenblatt collaborated with her son-in-law Woodie Guthrie, who set some of her poems to music. She also encouraged him in the writing of poetry, some of which has been set to music by the Klezmatics. Her personal library is discussed in "Outwitting History," by Aaron Lansky, who collected Yiddish books of a disappearing generation for "rescue" by the National Yiddish Book Center; he writes of his encounter with Marjorie (Greenblatt) Guthrie as she disposed of Yiddish books by the poets who were her mother's friends and colleagues. Aliza is also, of course, the grandmother of Arlo Guthrie.</p>
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</section>Fri, 20 Mar 2009 15:00:47 +0000d8admin4344 at https://jwa.orgReligious Zionist Movements in Palestinehttps://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/religious-zionist-movements-in-palestine
<span>Religious Zionist Movements in Palestine</span>
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden field-item">
<p>
Within the <i><span class="encyclopedia-glossary"><span class="def-container"><span class="encyclopedia-definition">Jewish community in Palestine prior to the establishment of the State of Israel. "Old <span style="font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-transform: none">Yishuv</span>" refers to the Jewish community prior to 1882; "New <span style="font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-transform: none">Yishuv</span>" to that following 1882.</span></span><span class="encyclopedia-term">Yishuv</span></span></i> society of pre-state Israel, there developed a unique sector with a complex ideology: a religious Zionist society that included two main movements—Mizrachi (1902) and Ha-Po’el ha-Mizrachi (1922). Religious Zionism, which sought to preserve tradition while also adopting modern ideas, was distinguished from the secular majority by its religious nature and from the ultra-Orthodox minority by its Zionism.
</p>
<p>
During the Mandate period, the <i>Yishuv</i> concentrated on building a national homeland, fostering essential institutions and enterprises to this end. Many voluntary organizations operated in the <i>Yishuv </i>in various fields, among them women’s organizations established during World War I and immediately afterwards, at a time when Jewish women’s organizations were blossoming worldwide. Two such organizations were set up in the framework of religious Zionism in <span class="encyclopedia-glossary"><span class="def-container"><span class="encyclopedia-definition">The Land of Israel</span></span><span class="encyclopedia-term">Ere<u>z</u> Israel</span></span>: The Mizrachi Women’s Union, founded in 1918, and the Ha-Po’el ha-Mizrachi women’s organization, founded in 1935. These organizations, like others of their kind, were profoundly affected by the social and economic factors that typified the period: increased immigration, an unstable economic situation and recession, World War II and the Holocaust.
</p>
<p>
Beginning in 1915, Mizrachi women’s organizations were founded throughout the Jewish world. The groups had two parallel paths of action. One was activism among women in their own countries, while the other was helping to build Ere<u>z</u> Israel in the spirit of religious Zionism. As part of the latter effort, they cooperated with religious women in Ere<u>z</u> Israel and gave them material help.
</p>
<h2>
MIZRACHI WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES—FROM ASSISTANTS TO LEADERS
</h2>
<p>
Since these scattered groups worked as auxiliaries for the Mizrachi Organization that was founded at the same time, their work was partial and restricted in its scope. In 1925, the Women’s Mizrachi Federation in America was founded, led by Adela Goldstein (d. 1938), a businesswoman with religious Zionist beliefs who traveled to various cities in the United States and unified the women’s groups into a national federation with common goals. Under her leadership, the women in America began to act independently, no longer as Mizrachi branch auxiliaries. At the same time, a Mizrachi youth organization was also founded for young women.
</p>
<p>
The fundamental goal of the Women’s Mizrachi Federation in America was to help build a national homeland in the spirit of <span class="encyclopedia-glossary"><span class="def-container"><span class="encyclopedia-definition"><span style="font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-transform: none">Torah she-bi-khetav</span>: Lit. "the written Torah." The Bible; the Pentateuch; <span style="font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-transform: none">Tanakh </span>(the Pentateuch, Prophets and Hagiographia)</span></span><span class="encyclopedia-term">Torah</span></span> according to Mizrachi ideology. In order to promote this goal, the women worked as an integral part of Mizrachi and cooperated with various Zionist organizations. The decision to work on behalf of women was made from the first, when a desire to aid pioneer women in <span class="encyclopedia-glossary"><span class="def-container"><span class="encyclopedia-definition">The Land of Israel</span></span><span class="encyclopedia-term">Ere<u>z</u> Israel</span></span> combined with <span class="encyclopedia-glossary"><span class="def-container"><span class="encyclopedia-definition">Lit. (Greek) "dispersion." The Jewish community, and its areas of residence, outside Ere<span style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: underline; text-transform: none">z</span> Israel.</span></span><span class="encyclopedia-term">Diaspora</span></span> women’s aspirations to help build the country. After learning and understanding the conditions in the country, the women decided to concentrate their efforts on realizing one goal: professional education for young religious girls in Ere<u>z</u> Israel. The two goals—helping to build a religious Ere<u>z</u> Israel and educating young girls—combined in the form of educational work that would be undertaken in the spirit of the Mizrachi movement: including tradition and Torah in the values of national rebirth.
</p>
<p>
During the 1920s and 1930s, the federation took new directions. New branches opened and the number of members increased. In 1939, there were seventy-three branches of the Women’s Mizrachi Federation with fifteen thousand members. In 1942 the federation had thirty-five thousand members and in 1948 the number increased to about forty thousand. During the 1940s the Women’s Mizrachi Federation was described as one of the most active women’s Zionist federations in the United States.
</p>
<p>
The leaders of the Women’s Mizrachi Federation in America tended to be religious and enthusiastically Zionist, activist, aware of their strength and educated. All of them shared the aspiration to work for the settlement of Ere<u>z</u> Israel. Outstanding among them were Adela Goldstein, who was the organization’s energetic driving force; <span class="encyclopedia_smallcaps"><a href="https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/gotsfeld-bessie-goldstein">Bessie Gotsfeld</a></span>, who was a member of the federation’s board of directors and its representative in Ere<u>z</u> Israel, Irena Shapira, the second president of Mizrachi Women in America from 1934 to 1942 and Bluma Yehudit Goldstein, who was the federation’s president from 1942 and typified the women who were both traditional and a product of American culture, well-versed in Zionism and Mizrachi’s role in building the land. These women led the organization to noteworthy achievements.
</p>
<p>
The work of the Women’s Mizrachi Federation in Ere<u>z</u> Israel combined independent action on the one hand and financial support of the settlement enterprise on the other. Cooperation between religious Zionist women in Ere<u>z</u> Israel and Mizrachi women in America enabled the development of national groups and contributed much to their activity. Mizrachi Women in America set up enterprises that were managed by the religious women’s organizations in Ere<u>z</u> Israel and financed a great part of women’s activity in the country.
</p>
<p>
While Mizrachi Women in America responded to the needs of the settlement enterprise, they also acted independently as its members saw fit, sometimes with the agreement of the movement in Ere<u>z</u> Israel and occasionally to its displeasure. Alongside the cooperation, there were occasional disagreements between the Mizrachi women of America and the groups in Ere<u>z</u> Israel, particularly Ha-Po’el Ha-Mizrachi. These disagreements focused on the differences between the goals of the philanthropic women’s organization and those of the pioneering-proletariat organization. There were also conflicts between these groups regarding finances. The American Mizrachi women, who acted according to the old rule of “He who pays the piper calls the tune,” did not give in to the movement in Ere<u>z</u> Israel. They worked according to their aspirations and in their many meetings their independence and refusal to submit to the men’s organizations stood out, along with their readiness to work to the satisfaction of the groups in Ere<u>z</u> Israel.
</p>
<h2>
WOMEN’S MIZRACHI FEDERATION IN ERE<u>Z</u> ISRAEL
</h2>
<h3>
Founded 1918
</h3>
<p>
Hinda Ostrovsky laid the foundation for the Mizrachi women’s organization in <span class="encyclopedia-glossary"><span class="def-container"><span class="encyclopedia-definition">The Land of Israel</span></span><span class="encyclopedia-term">Ere<u>z</u> Israel</span></span> in the <span class="encyclopedia-glossary"><span class="def-container"><span class="encyclopedia-definition">Lit. "village." The dominant pioneer settlement type of the Jews in Palestine between 1882</span></span><span class="encyclopedia-term">moshavah</span></span> of Ekron at the end of World War I. The first women’s group of Mizrachi Women in Ere<u>z</u> Israel declared its solidarity with the men’s organization, saying: “We, the women of the moshavah, are entering the Zionist Mizrachi organization and will work together with the men to build the nation according to <span class="encyclopedia-glossary"><span class="def-container"><span class="encyclopedia-definition"><span style="font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-transform: none">Torah she-bi-khetav</span>: Lit. "the written Torah." The Bible; the Pentateuch; <span style="font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-transform: none">Tanakh </span>(the Pentateuch, Prophets and Hagiographia)</span></span><span class="encyclopedia-term">Torah</span></span> and religious faith.” The women’s goal was to work together with the men to realize the “Mizrachi idea” and to win women adherents for the movement. The Mizrachi movement was pleased with this direction and hoped that a network of religious-Zionist women’s groups would spread throughout the country.
</p>
<h2>
1919–1938: LOCAL ORGANIZATION
</h2>
<p>
The Women’s Mizrachi Federation in Jerusalem was founded in Elul 5679 (September 1919) as a branch that worked locally, led by Leah Seliger. Hinda Ostrovsky, who moved to Jerusalem about a year after the women’s group in Ekron was founded, joined the federation, membership in which was open to all women aged seventeen and above. In 1922 it had more than six hundred members.
</p>
<p>
As the federation in Jerusalem developed, other branches opened throughout the country. These were run democratically and had constant contact with the women’s group in Jerusalem, which was dominant among them during the 1920s. In 1929, the Women’s Mizrachi Federation of Tel Aviv was founded, led by Leah Kook. This federation developed independently and by 1940 had hundreds of members.
</p>
<p>
The goal of the Women’s Mizrachi Federation at its founding was to act together with the men for Mizrachi goals—that is, to work among women and draw them into the Mizrachi movement to realize the idea of national revival in <span class="encyclopedia-glossary"><span class="def-container"><span class="encyclopedia-definition">The Land of Israel</span></span><span class="encyclopedia-term">Ere<u>z</u> Israel</span></span> in the spirit of the <span class="encyclopedia-glossary"><span class="def-container"><span class="encyclopedia-definition"><span style="font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-transform: none">Torah she-bi-khetav</span>: Lit. "the written Torah." The Bible; the Pentateuch; <span style="font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-transform: none">Tanakh </span>(the Pentateuch, Prophets and Hagiographia)</span></span><span class="encyclopedia-term">Torah</span></span>. According to the women’s declaration: “Our federation’s aspiration is the same as that of world Mizrachi: to establish our existence in our country on the foundations of our written Torah and our tradition. … Our goal is to sustain Israel’s holiness and encourage the spirit of Judaism among our nation’s mothers and daughters. Our duty is to awaken in their hearts love of the people, the Torah and the country, so that they too will aid in the realization of the Mizrachi goal: the rebirth of the nation of Israel in the land of Israel according to the Torah of Israel.”
</p>
<p>
Until the 1930s the Women’s Mizrachi Federations were local organizations with no connection between them, but with great affinity for the Mizrachi movement, whose goals they adopted and supported. Each local group developed differently, according to the conditions of the area in which it operated, beginning cooperative work only after the national organization was founded.
</p>
<h2>
1940: NATIONAL ORGANIZATION
</h2>
<p>
The need for a national center that would direct the activities of the women’s federations led to the establishment of the National Organization of Mizrachi Women. A temporary committee headed by Dr. Esther Rabin of the Haifa branch was elected in December 1937, as a first step in setting up the organization. Meeting in February 1938, the committee defined the central women’s organization’s goals: education of women in the Mizrachi spirit; participation in Mizrachi movement social work (mainly aid to women); political action; and contact with Mizrachi women all over the world. The major goal remained: to promote the Mizrachi idea among women along with traditional female activities such as social work, but also community work and development of a more general vision of the women’s organization.
</p>
<p>
Sarah Herzog (1899–1979), the wife of Chief Rabbi Isaac Herzog (1889–1959), who came to Israel in 1936, was active in developing the national organization. The difficult security and economic situation in the <i><span class="encyclopedia-glossary"><span class="def-container"><span class="encyclopedia-definition">Jewish community in Palestine prior to the establishment of the State of Israel. "Old <span style="font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-transform: none">Yishuv</span>" refers to the Jewish community prior to 1882; "New <span style="font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-transform: none">Yishuv</span>" to that following 1882.</span></span><span class="encyclopedia-term">Yishuv</span></span>,</i> combined with the increasing stream of immigrants, mandated development and increased activity. New forces congregated around Sarah Herzog, a work program was drawn up, bylaws written and a working committee elected.
</p>
<p>
Omen, the Mizrachi women’s organization in <span class="encyclopedia-glossary"><span class="def-container"><span class="encyclopedia-definition">The Land of Israel</span></span><span class="encyclopedia-term">Ere<u>z</u> Israel</span></span>, was officially established in 1940 with Sarah Herzog as its leader. It included all the groups and institutions of “Mizrachi-type” religious women in the country. Bessie Gotsfeld represented Mizrachi Women in America, though that organization united with Israel’s only after the state was founded. Along with Omen, the branch organizations continued to operate as usual. At annual conventions, Mizrachi women from all over the country made decisions for the future.
</p>
<p>
Omen’s goals were: 1. Unifying the Women’s Mizrachi Federations in Ere<u>z</u> Israel; 2. Maintaining contact with Mizrachi women abroad; 3. Encouraging connections with Mizrachi institutions and aiding those who ran them. The female nature of the organization was a prime, much-stressed characteristic. The main goal remained organizing women to realize Mizrachi goals. After the Holocaust, there were additional goals which resulted from the condition of the <i>Yishuv</i> and the need to absorb survivors, whose physical and spiritual rehabilitation became an important area of work for the religious women.
</p>
<p>
The establishment of Omen brought about an upswing in the organization’s development and a significant increase in membership. By August 1948 Omen numbered fifteen thousand women. The organization’s development enabled it to broaden its activity and to feel that it could have an influence on the running of the <i>Yishuv</i>.
</p>
<h2>
THE WOMEN WORKERS’ ORGANIZATION OF HA-PO’EL HA-MIZRACHI
</h2>
<h3>
From 1921: Immigration of Religious Pioneer Women
</h3>
<p>
While the Mizrachi women were busy with local activity, newly-arrived religious pioneer women wanted to take a greater part in building the country. Their acclimation was difficult because there was no appropriate setting to ease their way. The general population of women workers, who were not religious, did not understand the religious pioneer women’s outlook or their desire to continue in a traditional lifestyle that restricted women. The male religious workers, who were modern in their thoughts and actions but still anchored by tradition in everything pertaining to women, found it difficult to accept the religious women pioneers into their ranks. These women therefore faced a double disability, rejected by religious society because of their sex and by general society because of their religious beliefs.
</p>
<p>
Ra<u>h</u>el Berckman-Labkovsky, the first religious woman pioneer, came to <span class="encyclopedia-glossary"><span class="def-container"><span class="encyclopedia-definition">The Land of Israel</span></span><span class="encyclopedia-term">Ere<u>z</u> Israel</span></span> in 1921, insisted on joining Ha-Po’el ha-Mizrachi, and opened the way for other religious women pioneers. Yet the inclusion of women in the movement was not an adequate response to their economic and social distress. The increased physical suffering of religious women on the one hand and the discrimination they faced in religious and economic society led them to organize in 1934.
</p>
<h2>
1935: ESTABLISHMENT OF THE NATIONAL ORGANIZATION OF RELIGIOUS PIONEER WOMEN
</h2>
<p>
The organization of religious pioneer women was established by new immigrants with experience in movements. Its leader was <span class="encyclopedia_smallcaps">Tova Goldreich-Sanhedrai</span>, who came to Palestine in 1934 and, together with some friends, concluded that they must organize in order to maintain their autonomy while also contributing to building the land. The arrival of more pioneers in <span class="encyclopedia-glossary"><span class="def-container"><span class="encyclopedia-definition">The Land of Israel</span></span><span class="encyclopedia-term">Ere<u>z</u> Israel</span></span>, such as Miriam Eliash (1909–1987), Devorah Eliner (1904–1982), Leah Tirosh (1908–1995), Leah Adini (b. 1911) and others, provided a significant impetus to the organization of religious women pioneers. In January 1935 the founding assembly of the women pioneers’ organization of Ha-Po’el ha-Mizrachi was held. It determined a mechanism for organizing a national council, secretariat and branches throughout the country, whose representatives would meet at general assemblies.
</p>
<p>
The major goal of the pioneer women’s organization was to improve the material status and spiritual welfare of the religious women workers and enable them to join Ha-Po’el ha-Mizrachi. Apart from caring for the needs of women workers, the organization insisted on full partnership in the movement and its enterprises. And together with the intention of the women workers to fill “traditional feminine” roles, the organization also called for women’s active participation in national tasks.
</p>
<p>
The pioneer women’s organization had modest beginnings, without means or experience in organizational work. Yet though it suffered from the usual difficulties of a nascent organization—indecision as to its direction, lack of members with initiative, lack of experience, budgetary problems and more—its members did not desist from their efforts.
</p>
<p>
When the organization was set up in 1935, it had about eight hundred members. By 1948 it had six thousand, a little more than a third of the number of women who had joined Mizrachi that same year. While the Mizrachi women’s organization appealed to the general religious public because of its traditional beliefs, the women workers’ organization was sector-based and had new, socialist ideas. As a result, it attracted members who agreed with its world view and whose aspirations related to the status of workers and pioneer activity.
</p>
<p>
The main goal of both religious women’s organizations was building the country in a religious spirit. Yet the women workers advocated distinctly feminist goals as a way to achieve the main objective of attaining the goals of the pioneer movement, while the Mizrachi women refrained from such a declaration. In the final analysis, the actual operations of the two movements eventually blurred the difference between them, since the pioneer women’s organization worked according to traditional female roles, while in their action the Mizrachi women expressed the modernity they did not wish to declare openly.
</p>
<h2>
THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE LEADERS AND MEMBERS
</h2>
<p>
The leaders of both movements were outstanding figures in the religious society to which they belonged, even if only by virtue of their initiative. They set up organizations and worked tirelessly in the public sphere which had previously been a male preserve. By their actions, they proved that it was possible to engage in extensive public activity and still maintain a religious lifestyle.
</p>
<p>
Leah Seliger, Hinda Ostrovsky and Sophia-Tikvah Pick were key figures in the Jerusalem group’s establishment and activity. Leah Kook led the Mizrachi Women’s Tel Aviv branch, while Sarah Herzog was a national leader along with Dr. Esther Rabin, Anita Miller-Cohen (1890–?), and <u>H</u>annah Lenzkron-Farbstein.
</p>
<p>
While each of the outstanding women had a unique personality, they shared some common characteristics. The leaders of Mizrachi Women were married and usually mothers. They entered the public sphere because of their husbands or fathers, who were often active in the Mizrachi movement. They had general and Jewish education and in many cases engaged in literary or educational work. They proved that they could be educated and even opinionated, yet still remain faithful to their religion. Once it was clear that education resulted in power and the ability to improve and promote women’s status, they used all their skills to influence religious women. Some of the leaders sometimes received a salary from the movement, but most of them belonged to the middle-class bourgeoisie, financially established and free of the need to work to support themselves. A few of them had a tradition of volunteer work. The organizational experience they acquired created an organizational awareness and helped them establish the Women’s Mizrachi Federation and create the national organization.
</p>
<p>
Like their leaders, the group’s members were also well-to-do, older Ashkenazi married home-makers willing to contribute their time and money to the organization’s activities. The members paid monthly dues to the federation, but were not among its leaders.
</p>
<p>
Unlike them, the women members of Ha-Po’el ha-Mizrachi and its leaders were mostly young women who had been active in movements abroad, arrived in Palestine as single women and joined Ha-Po’el ha-Mizrachi. They worked in order to support themselves. Most of them were married to members of the organization, but acted independently. Over the years, differences between the women of both organizations decreased and their work ultimately had similar goals.
</p>
<h2>
WOMEN’S RELATIONSHIP TO THE MIZRACHI MOVEMENT
</h2>
<h3>
Organizational and Economic Cooperation
</h3>
<p>
Mizrachi supported their women in organizational and financial ways for pragmatic reasons, because the movement needed women for its electorate and in order to promulgate and achieve its goals. But while the women wanted support, they opposed male patronage. As members of the movement they demonstrated independence, refusing to submit to male rule. Unlike the Mizrachi movement, which was concerned only with its own good, the women related to the welfare of all their sex and acted accordingly.
</p>
<p>
During the 1930s and 1940s the women’s financial dependence on the movement decreased and their activity led to a strengthening of women and to organizational independence as well as representation in movement institutions. This combination of financial dependence with expressions of independence characterized the Mizrachi women’s organization in <span class="encyclopedia-glossary"><span class="def-container"><span class="encyclopedia-definition">The Land of Israel</span></span><span class="encyclopedia-term">Ere<u>z</u> Israel</span></span>.
</p>
<h2>
THE WOMEN WORKERS’ ORGANIZATION AND ITS RELATIONSHIP TO HA-PO’EL HA-MIZRACHI
</h2>
<h3>
Organizational and Economic Cooperation
</h3>
<p>
The religious women workers’ organization was set up with the support of Ha-Po’el ha-Mizrachi to achieve the movement’s goals. Ha-Po’el ha-Mizrachi saw the women workers’ organization as an inseparable part of itself and the women also saw themselves as full members of the movement. While Ha-Po’el ha-Mizrachi realized that the women’s group needed to deal primarily with matters relating to women workers, it also expected its activity to encompass all fields of action of Ha-Po’el ha-Mizrachi. The women workers’ organization did not arise from a separate ideology, but showed its independence via an ideological perspective which sought to establish new directions.
</p>
<p>
The women workers’ organization was financially dependent on Ha-Po’el ha-Mizrachi because its members were from a lower-class economic background and, in contrast to Mizrachi women, had no economic support abroad. In large part, the group’s financial weakness caused its subordination to the movement.
</p>
<p>
Ideologically, the Mizrachi women were no more than an auxiliary of Mizrachi, though financially independent, while the women workers’ organization was at once independent and ideologically and financially subordinate.
</p>
<p>
The Mizrachi Women’s organization was actually an organization of women connected to Mizrachi, and the religious women workers’ organization added the words “of Ha-Po’el ha-Mizrachi” to its name. Their identification with the wider religious movement and its ideology was obvious to the women, and their goals were similar to those of the movement as a whole. Both the women and the men accepted the traditional perceptions of women’s role. The role that the men set for the women and their organization was that of helper—comparable to their role within their homes. The women accepted this role without challenge, though they demonstrated their capabilities through independent action.
</p>
<h2>
ACTION: CHARITABLE ACTIVITY, ABSORPTION, EDUCATION AND PROFESSIONAL TRAINING
</h2>
<p>
The religious women’s activities concentrated mainly on social aid, an extension of women’s traditional role which served to “liberate” women without challenging traditional norms. In accordance with traditional perceptions, religious women chose charitable activity as their main goal, further motivated by the grave economic situation of Ere<u>z</u> Israel’s residents during the world wars, the large waves of immigration and frequent financial crises.
</p>
<p>
Mizrachi women in Jerusalem helped the sick and the poor by providing medical treatment and distributing medicine. They organized help for those who had been wounded in the riots in the Ukraine and distributed money and food to needy people, with the support of Mizrachi Women of America. They also helped in immigrant absorption by distributing food and clothing and established institutions to absorb Youth <span class="encyclopedia-glossary"><span class="def-container"><span class="encyclopedia-definition">Lit. "ascent." A "calling up" to the Torah during its reading in the synagogue.</span></span><span class="encyclopedia-term">Aliyah</span></span> and refugee children. The American Mizrachi Women provided generous support, as did the women workers’ organization, which supplied workers for the immigrant absorption institutions.
</p>
<p>
Mizrachi women were extremely active in education. By focusing on early childhood, they aimed not only to educate children to the movement’s values, but also to help children and mothers in distress. To this end, they established kindergartens and day-care centers, school kitchens, after-school clubs and summer camps.
</p>
<p>
Mizrachi women distinguished themselves in education for young religious women. At the initiative of Mizrachi Women of America, “Homes for Young Mizrachi Women” were established in Jerusalem in 1933 and in Tel Aviv in 1939. These had two goals: to give women professional training and at the same time to create an educational and spiritual center for young women.
</p>
<p>
In order to help religious pioneer women who were in material and spiritual distress, the Mizrachi women established relief institutions for them, such as the Jerusalem Workshop for Professional Training in 1923; an agricultural training farm for religious women workers in Gan Megged in 1936, managed by the women workers’ organization with the support of Mizrachi women; and homes for religious pioneer women which served as absorption centers for new arrivals (Haifa [1935] and Tel Aviv [1937]; as well as Peta<u>h</u> Tikvah and Ramat Gan, with the support of Mizrachi Women of Canada, New York and the U.K.). These enterprises gave young religious women not only basic support but also professional and cultural training, thus helping them to improve their status in society.
</p>
<p>
Help for the pioneers played an important part in the activity of the women workers’ organizations, which assisted in bringing religious women pioneers to Israel and helped them become acclimated, finding them work through employment offices they established and offering courses and professional training as well as cultural activity.
</p>
<p>
The religious women’s organizations also engaged in cultural activity for their members and were involved in general Zionist activity, as well as in activity for the religious Zionist movement. Over the years, with the growth of activity and involvement of religious women in the public sphere, their awareness of the importance of action in the political arena increased. In two elections during the <i><span class="encyclopedia-glossary"><span class="def-container"><span class="encyclopedia-definition">Jewish community in Palestine prior to the establishment of the State of Israel. "Old <span style="font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-transform: none">Yishuv</span>" refers to the Jewish community prior to 1882; "New <span style="font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-transform: none">Yishuv</span>" to that following 1882.</span></span><span class="encyclopedia-term">Yishuv</span></span></i> period, religious women participated in “women’s” lists and were even elected to the Constituents Assembly. Their presence in politics signaled a change in women’s status in religious Judaism.
</p>
<p>
By extensive activity in various areas, religious Zionist women penetrated the public sphere, developed new and independent types of activity, raised funds and empowered themselves to affect their status in society. The women’s organizations spoke in two voices: openly and in the organization, they identified completely with the men’s organizations, but their action and goals were feminine At the same time as they belonged to the movement, they worked to develop their own independence and even while they were financially dependent on outside groups, they used new forms of activity. The emergence of religious women into the public sphere independently, with initiative, financial management, establishment of institutions, etc., was something new in religious Zionism.
</p>
<h2>
MIZRACHI WOMEN AND THE WOMEN WORKERS’ ORGANIZATION—FROM COMPETITION TO UNITY
</h2>
<p>
The Mizrachi women’s organization and the religious women workers’ association had a unique outlook based on their religious background and affiliation with their respective movements. The religious aspect took precedence over all others. Neither organization placed women’s issues at the head of the agenda. Nevertheless, the women workers’ organization aimed to aid all women workers, perceiving its chief goal as being cooperation between women workers in building the country according to the religious movement’s principles.
</p>
<p>
Despite similarities, relations between the religious women workers’ organization and Mizrachi women were complex. In various places throughout the country branches of the women workers’ organization existed side by side with those of Mizrachi women. While they cooperated on many issues, there were also conflicts. Competition between the two organizations arose because, despite the different sector of society to which each belonged, both sought to work and develop within the setting of a relatively small society: Both organizations tried to find solutions for religious women at a time when the possibilities were limited and the conflicts between them often became competitions for influence, creation of jobs and the like.
</p>
<p>
Both groups had a common religious background, but their connection to their main movements and the class discrepancies between them hampered their cooperation. The women workers’ organization saw itself as a sectorial party and wished to support its members, while the Mizrachi women not only belonged to the Mizrachi movement but were also a bourgeois-philanthropic organization that concentrated most of its efforts on helping others. In accordance with these differences, each organization sought to direct its activities in different channels.
</p>
<p>
Over time, it has become clear that the two organizations actually complemented each other. Each appealed to a different population within religious Zionism. Moreover, the religious women workers and the Mizrachi women had a similar goal: building a religious <span class="encyclopedia-glossary"><span class="def-container"><span class="encyclopedia-definition">The Land of Israel</span></span><span class="encyclopedia-term">Ere<u>z</u> Israel</span></span>. This shared aspiration set the religious women’s organizations apart from other groups and allowed cooperative activity.
</p>
<p>
The practical cooperation between the religious women’s organizations ultimately blurred the ideological distinctions. The common goal—strengthening religious education and raising the younger generation with Jewish-national values—required unity. Sarah Herzog and Tova Sanhedrai found a common language, but the organizational unification itself did not take place for many years. In 1959, the two religious-Zionist women’s groups merged into one organization, the Women’s National Religious Movement, which in 1977 was renamed <span class="encyclopedia_smallcaps">Emunah</span>.
</p>
</div>
<span><span lang="" about="https://jwa.org/users/d7admin" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="" xml:lang="">d8admin</span></span>
<span>Fri, 02/27/2009 - 09:28</span>
by <a href="https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/author/rosenberg-friedman-lilach" hreflang="und">Lilach Rosenberg-Friedman</a>
<div class="field field-name-field-bibliography field-type-text-long field-label-above">
<div class="field-label">Bibliography</div>
<div class="field-item"><div class="biblio">
<h3>Organizational Publications (in Hebrew): <helptopic></helptopic></h3>
<helptopic><p> <span style="font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-transform: none">Dappei
Pe’ulah</span>: Newletter of the Women’s National Religious Movement. <br /><br />
Published from 1952–1971 by Emunah, the Women’s National Religious Movement
(Emunah represents the unification of Mizrachi Women, Omen, and the women
pioneers’ organization of Ha-Po’el ha-Mizrachi). Tel Aviv. </p>
<p> <span style="font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; text-transform: none">Niv
ha-</span><span style="font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: underline; text-transform: none">H</span><i>evrah</i>:<span style="font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-transform: none">
</span>Newsletter of Emunah, the Women’s National Religious Movement. <br /><br />
Published from 1954–1990 by the secretariat of Emunah. Tel Aviv. </p>
</helptopic><h3>
Works in Hebrew
</h3>
<helptopic><p> Oli<i>z</i>ur,
Abraham. <span style="font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-transform: none">National
Capital and the Building of the Land. </span>Jerusalem: 1940. <br /><br />
This book surveys the sources of funding for the <i>Yishuv</i>
and the settlement of Ere<i>z</i>
Israel, including the Keren Kayemeth Leisrael (Jewish National Fund), Keren
Hayesod (United Israel Appeal), and womens’ organizations such as WIZO, Hadassah
and Mizrachi Women. </p>
<p> Ostrovsky, Moshe. <span style="font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-transform: none">History
of the Mizrachi in Erez Israel. </span>Jerusalem: 1944. <br /><br />
This book focuses on religious Zionism, specifically on the Mizrachi institutions
in Ere<i>z</i>
Israel. It describes the establishment of the first group of Mizrachi Women
in Ere<i>z</i>
Israel by Hinda Ostrovsky, of the Mizrachi Women’s Union, and of Omen, the
Mizrachi women’s organization in Ere<i>z</i>
Israel. The book also deals with girls’ education in Erez Israel and in issues
surrounding Israeli women’s suffrage. </p>
<p> Gotkind-Golan, Naomi. <span style="font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-transform: none">Miriam
Eliash: I Have Chosen a Way of Faith [Emunah]. </span>Tel Aviv: 1991. <br /><br />
This book memorializes Miriam Eliash, a founder of the women pioneers’ organization
of Ha-Po’el ha-Mizrachi. Eliash’s life story, as told here, encompasses the
history of the women pioneers’ organization and of the Emunah movement from
its inception. </p>
<p> Ganchovsky, Eliyahu-Moshe. <span style="font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-transform: none">When
You Will Enter the Land. </span>Jerusalem: 1936. <br /><br />
This book describes the activities of the Mizrachi movement in Ere<i>z</i>
Israel. It raises issues such as: education of girls; coeducation; the Mizrachi
Teachers’ Seminary; the Mizrachi school system; the Mizrachi Women’s Histadrut
activities; and Mizrachi dormitories for young girls and for women pioneers.
The book also describes the religious settlement in Ere<i>z</i>
Israel and discusses the position of women within the settlement structure.
</p>
<p> Grayovsky, Pin<i>h</i>as
B. <span style="font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-transform: none">Daughters
of Zion and Jerusalem. </span>Jerusalem:1929 (re-issued 2000). <br /><br />
Biographies of Jewish women in Israel, including the women of Mizrachi. </p>
<p> Gardi, Natan. <span style="font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-transform: none">Memoirs
of a Religious Pioneer, </span>Vols. 1–2. Tel Aviv: 1973. <br /><br />
The author recounts the story of his life, into which is interwoven the history
of the Ha-Po’el ha-Mizrachi movement. The book contains abundant information
about religious Zionism and the religious settlement in Kefar <i>H</i>ittim.
Reference is made to the following topics: The aliyah of the religious pioneers;
relations among male and female religious pioneers; workers’ residences; Benei
Akiva; and Mizrachi women. </p>
<p> Daniel, Shabbetai, ed. <i>Ra</i><span style="font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: underline; text-transform: none">h</span><span style="font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-transform: none">el
Berckman. </span>Tel Aviv: 1939. <br /><br />
A book in memory of Ra<i>h</i>el
Berckman-Labkovsky, the first religious woman pioneer. This story of her life
also encompasses the history of the Ha-Po’el ha-Mizrachi movement and the
religious womens’ pioneer movement. The eulogies of Berckman also provide
a portrayal of the hardships of the religious woman pioneer, the women workers’
farms, the place of the woman pioneer in Ha-Po’el ha-Mizrachi and more. </p>
<p> Maizlish, Saul. <span style="font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-transform: none">The
Rabbanit. </span>1980. <br /><br />
The lifestory of Rabbanit Sarah Herzog, into which is interwoven the creation
and development of Emunah, the Women’s National Religious Movement. </p>
<p> Maizlish, Saul, ed. <span style="font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-transform: none">I
Have Chosen Faith [Emunah]: A Character Sketch of Tova Sanhedrai-Goldreich.
</span>Tel Aviv:1996. <br /><br />
The biography of Tova Sanhedrai, the founder of the National Organization
of Religious Pioneer Women of Ha-Po’el ha-Mizrachi, a leader of Emunah and
a member of Knesset. Her unique story and achievements are described alongside
a description of the history of these religious womens’organizations. </p>
<p> Sarig, Tikvah. <span style="font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-transform: none">Legendary
Mother. </span>Tel Aviv:1980. <br /><br />
The author, the daughter of Leah Seliger, founder of the Women’s Mizrachi
Federation in Jerusalem, sketches the character of her mother from the unique
vantage point of a personal perspective. </p>
<p> Rosenberg, Lilach. Farms of the Religious Women Workers in Ere<i>z</i>
Israel, 1925–1939.” <span style="font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-transform: none">Cathedra
</span>(Tevet/January 1999): 87–114.<span style="font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-transform: none">
</span> <br /><br />
This essay describes the establishment of the farms of religious women workers
during the 1920s and 1930s, with a focus on their character and uniqueness
and the personalities of the women workers who developed them. </p>
<p> Idem. “Women and Gender in Religious Zionism: Organization, Settlement and
Security, 1918–1948.” Ph.D. diss., Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan, 2002. <br /><br />
At the center of the discussion of this work stands three primary elements
which “spearheaded” the Zionist endeavor in Erez Israel: new social-institutional
organization; agricultural settlement; and the foundations of a national security
system. Each of these topics enables a meaningful look at religious Zionism
and its gender attitudes. The work is based on a characterization of the new
image of the religious Zionist woman, and examines anew the nature of religious
society from the perspective of its gender relations. </p>
</helptopic><h3> WORKS IN ENGLISH </h3>
<helptopic><p> Berkowitz, Michael. “Transcending ‘Tzimmes and Sweetness’: Recovering the
History of Zionist Women in Central and Western Europe, 1897–1933.” In <span style="font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-transform: none">Active
Voices: Women in Jewish Culture</span>, edited by Maurie Sacks, 41–62. Chicago:
1995. <br /><br />
With the exception of this essay, the articles in this book deal with women
in Judaism: lifestyle, folklore, literature, etc.; </p>
<p>
Weissler, Chava. “The Religion of Traditional Ashkenazic Women: Some Methodological Issues.” <i>The Journal of the Association for Jewish Studies</i> 22:1 (1987): 73–94.
</p>
</helptopic></div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="field field-name-field-biomainimage field-type-entity-reference field-label-hidden field-items">
<div class="field-item">
<div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden field-item"> <a href="https://jwa.org/media/religious-zionist-still-image"><img src="https://jwa.org/themes/jwawesome/images/lazy.gif" width="300" height="203" alt="The Women’s Mizrachi Federation in America, Detroit Meeting, circa 1960s" title="The Women’s Mizrachi Federation in America, Detroit Meeting, circa 1960s" data-src="//d3q94h10rclvvz.cloudfront.net/sites/default/files/styles/scale_width_300px/public/mediaobjects/Religious-Zionist.jpg?itok=fncVsbcc" class="b-lazy" typeof="foaf:Image" /></a>
</div>
<div class="caption">
<div class="field field-name-field-caption field-type-text-long field-label-hidden field-item"><p>The Women’s Mizrachi Federation in America, founded in 1925, was led in cities throughout the United States by women who were highly-educated, passionately religious Zionists, active both in their home communities and on behalf of Israel. This Women's Mizrachi event in 1960s Detroit, Michigan, was organized by Yetta Sperka, a playwright, speaker, and activist in women's, Jewish and Zionist causes.</p><p>Institution: Deanna Mirsky Sperka, Detroit</p></div>
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<a href="https://jwa.org/media/emuna-2-still-image" hreflang="und">Leaders of World Emunah at 2003 Congress</a>
<a href="https://jwa.org/media/gotsfeld-bessie-still-image" hreflang="und">Bessie Gotsfeld</a>
<a href="https://jwa.org/media/sanhadray-tova-small-still-image" hreflang="und">Tova Sanhadray</a>
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